


Bobby, Baby

by scroogesnephew



Category: Company - Sondheim/Furth
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-10
Updated: 2020-06-10
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:28:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24644824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scroogesnephew/pseuds/scroogesnephew
Summary: A story in multiple parts. Amy and Paul got married after all - and now they have a big favor to ask of their best man.
Relationships: Amy/Bobby, Amy/Paul, if you squint
Kudos: 6





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Amy is a trans woman and Bobby is a trans man. This is critical to understanding the story, lol. This is just the first chapter. *to be continued spongebob title screen* All these characters know how to do is yearn and pine and not express their feelings.

It’s a one-two punch, for Bobby, even though the events are a year apart. One year to the day, actually, when Amy almost left Paul, and almost married Bobby. Even Bobby didn’t know how close it had come to that. Amy knew. A hair’s width. Less.

But it was Amy and Paul’s anniversary now - their one year, and they had dug out their frozen white slices of year-old cake and had invited Bobby over to share.

During that year, there were many days when Amy picked up the phone and dialed eight or nine digits of Bobby’s number, only to put the phone back on its hook before reaching the last number. It was a kind of self-stoked torture, like combing your skin with a pinched bundle of thumbtacks or lighting the ends of your hair on fire and blowing it out — both of which Amy used to do, incidentally, in her early 20’s, when her anxiety showed itself differently. Nevertheless, Bobby didn’t know about the almost-dials, and so he spent a year getting just the odd call from Paul here and there - updates about work, sports, you know - and straining to hear anything of Amy in the background. One time he caught her singing a slip of something, but he couldn’t place the song. Another time she’d called Paul to dinner, and he’d had to hang up. That was it. Paul almost seemed to avoid the subject, though he’d answer if asked directly. “How’s married life?” (A different question than he’d ask, say, David. ‘How’s the old ball and chain?’) Paul would report back that married life was pleasant, that they were well — planning vacations and the like. The stilted politeness that had always lurked nauseatingly around the corners of Bobby’s friendship with Paul had finally come out in full force. It was as if the longer they got to know each other the more awkward they became around one another.

So Bobby had a hard time grasping that night’s invitation.

“It’s our one year. Come and celebrate with us. We’ll have cake, and wine, and anything else you might desire.”

Bobby had stammered. “Don’t — but don’t you want to spend your anniversary together?”

“We spend every day together, Robert,” Paul had said, not unkindly. “We miss YOU. Amy misses you! You were her best man too, you know.”

Like getting the wind knocked out of him.

Bobby said he’d be there. He grabbed the first taxi he saw, and feverishly smoothed his hair and clothes out all the way.

***

“I didn’t bring a gift!” Bobby said, much too loudly and wide-eyed, as soon as Paul opened the door.

“You don’t need to bring us anything, Robert; the gift is your presence,” Paul laughed, far too graciously, and led Bobby inside. There, sitting at a countertop, in a little white dress that looked like a less-bridal version of the one she’d gotten married in, was Amy. Her face was illuminated by the glow of the single candle emerging from the white cake. You’d expect the effect to be haunting, but it wasn’t. Her face flickered into a smile while the candle sputtered. “Hi, Robert.”

Robert. So she had really done with calling him Bobby. An era of their lives was ended, had ended a year ago, he had to admit now, when he’d tossed her that bouquet and let her run out into the rain. Still, Robert — that sealed it.

It wouldn’t be getting any easier for him. Paul and Amy had a question that needed asking, though they waited and paced their way through a dinner’s worth of conversation first. By the end of it Bobby was almost feeling warm again — the old charisma, the natural sparks of wit that always ignited when he and Amy were together returning cautiously. They laughed. My god, it felt good to laugh with his best friend again. He was beaming. Maybe things could go back to normal, now. The three of them. Like it should be. With Bobby the most important piece of their triangular lives — after all, it takes three to make a happy couple, that’s what Bobby had always believed. Now they had moved to the living room, more than a little wine-tipsy, Paul in an armchair and Amy and Bobby on a couch that buckled inwards so their shoulders leaned into one another. And then the question. The one that sucked all the air out of the room.

It was the question that extinguished Bobby’s newly reborn glow, as suddenly as someone blowing out a birthday candle. They’d asked it in a more articulate way, he was sure, but when it rattled back around in his head for the next eternity it echoed plainly:

“Will you be our surrogate?”

A baby. They wanted a baby. And they wanted Bobby to carry it.


	2. An Answer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bobby gives his answer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, Bobby and Amy are both trans. Why? Because I arbitrarily said so, that’s why. It’s important to understanding the plot. Lol

Was there another choice?

If there was, Bobby couldn’t see it. The world before him tunneled until all he could see were the candle’s drippings on the plate in his lap. The last swallow of wine in his mouth tasted like wax and went down like a yankee candle.

In the periphery, Paul’s strong-jawed face, expectant, cheerful. Not a wrinkle or shadow of doubt crossed his expression. The wedding last year — Amy’s momentary panic — was the closest Paul had come in his life to being told no. Lucky break. Streak unbroken.

When Bobby’s pulse slowed, he could see Amy, for once, inscrutable. No wringing of hands, no twisting of her mouth to one side. Calm. Looking at Bobby with an almost curiously removed expression.

And then the whisper of a smile.

The words were coaxed up from Bobby’s throat. Riding a nauseous, reluctant wave that he couldn’t — or refused to — explain.

“If anyone should be parents, it’s you two.”

Paul didn’t notice Bobby’s concerted grimace. Amy might have. But she didn’t say anything. She just grabbed his hand and folded it up in hers.

“But why me, though?” he turned directly to Amy, shifting on the couch, his dark eyes searching her bright blue ones. There was a time when they could hold entire conversations this way — in crowded parties, or brushing their teeth in a shared bathroom, back when they were roommates. Now she was a blank wall, and Bobby bizarrely felt like a telephone call had been declined. “I’m in my mid-thirties. You could have someone younger, someone healthier, someone better looking —“

“Give yourself some credit, Robert,” Paul smirked, and then Amy’s real smile finally broke, dimples and all.

“Please. We wouldn’t ask anybody else in the world,” she cut in, beaming. “It had to be you.”

Paul’s hand went lovingly to Amy’s knee, and then Bobby was nodding, and two weeks later found himself sweating in a car outside a fertility clinic, 15 minutes early to his appointment, clutching tight to Amy’s hand.


End file.
